


Madness of the Heart

by Sidi



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Cannibalism, Death, Depressing, Established Relationship, Horror, M/M, Suicide Attempt, Violence, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2018-11-02 11:22:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10943487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sidi/pseuds/Sidi
Summary: Even if he knew how it would turn out, he still wouldn't change a damned thing.





	Madness of the Heart

**Author's Note:**

> I am not kidding with any of the tags. Avoid if any of the tags bother you. I have been depressed all day and somehow this happened.

It starts off so easy, so insignificant. They have liberated another planet from Galra control. It is actually a fairly easy mission. They are older now and many years into their roles as Paladins. They have fallen into their rhythm, their powers, their duties. The Galra on this planet are scientists so many of them are the Galra equivalents of nerds rather than soldiers. In this case, they often took prisoners rather than killing everyone.  

As they are preparing to leave, one of the Galra prisoners snarls, lunges forward, and looks like he punches Keith in the arm. He is quickly subdued, but not before looking at Keith and uttering the words “Vrepit Sa.”

Keith actually laughs afterward, pulling up his sleeve to show a very small trickle of blood dripping down. He wipes it away with a flick of his hand and then throws an arm around Lance. Lance leans into him, mind already on showering and then watching some movies before bed with his boyfriend.

Easy.

Insignificant.

 

**********

 

Keith wakes up the next morning complaining that he feels a bit hot.

“Baby, you are always hot,” Lance fires back, giving him finger guns.

Keith rolls his eyes and tousles Lance’s hair.

“Actually hot. Like I have a fever.”

None of them had ever been sick in space. It seems strange when Lance considers it. People get sick. It is a part of life. What is it about being in space that made them all so healthy?

But, nevertheless, Keith running a fever doesn’t seem like something to panic about. The day before is already forgotten.

Lance tucks his boyfriend into bed, bringing him juice and kissing his forehead.

Keith feels better by the next morning.

 

**********

 

Lance groans inwardly. He hates when he gets stuck sparring with Shiro. He always gets his ass kicked. Shiro is merciless with sparring as well. So is Keith, but at least Lance knows he could distract Keith by grabbing his ass or planting a kiss on him when he had him pinned.

He mournfully glances over at Pidge and Keith in the other corner and Hunk with a gladiator before Shiro is darting in his direction, forcing his attention back on him.

He is struggling to defend himself when he hears Pidge’s voice saying Keith’s name.

The tone is wrong for the moment. Sparring, training. She should be talking shit to him or teasing him or the plethora of other tones you may have when training with a friend.

This is worried though. The way you would say someone’s name if they are hurt.

Lance and Shiro both immediately drop their arms and look over to where Pidge is standing in front of Keith who is on one knee, head dropped.

Pidge puts her hand on his shoulder and speaks to him in tones too low for Lance to hear.

It still seems so insignificant.

Keith stands a moment later, saying that he had gotten dizzy but he is fine now. Pidge looks worried though and insists he get checked out. Shiro agrees, putting an end to any protests Keith might raise.

Lance walks him to the med bay, meeting Coran. They laugh and joke while Coran checks over Keith. His boyfriend winks at him from a table where Coran draws some blood.

Easy.

 

**********

 

The next morning, there is a knock on the door to their shared bedroom. They had long left behind their smaller, single bedrooms.

Coran is at the door and the look on his face makes Lance heart drop.

“We need to talk to Keith in the med bay immediately. Can you wake him for me?”

Lance gently wakes his boyfriend, still curled up around a pillow.

Coran tries to insist on speaking to Keith with Allura alone, but Keith refuses.

“Anything you have to say to me you can say in front of him,” he says, holding Lance’s hand.

 There is a moment of silence and Lance notices the way Allura and Coran look at each other. Their eyes are sad, pitying.

Lance tries to control his racing heart, the dark spiral swirling in his chest, the creeping fear that extends over his body.

 

**********

 

“Lance, you need to calm down.”

“Don’t tell me what to do, Shiro.”

“We are doing what we can.” Lance can’t stand the way Allura looks at him as she says this.

“You have pods that can bring me back from a fucking coma, Hunk was bleeding out that one time, Pidge had a fucking skull fracture, but some space virus is going to....going to…”

He can’t finish the sentence.

Keith had asked for some time alone. Lance’s current anger at Coran and Allura is the only thing that keeps him from following Keith.

“All I am saying is that we are finding a solution, a cure, whatever. None of this incurable shit. There is always a way out.”

“Of course. Of course we will try,” Allura responds.

“We will try everything,” Coran says.  

Lance storms out, not even looking at the tears in Coran’s eyes or Shiro’s thousand yard stare.

 

**********

 

Lance doesn’t sleep that night. Keith is curled up in front of him. Lance has his arms around the smaller man. He holds him close, feeling like if he just holds him close enough that everything will be ok. That he can protect Keith with just his arms.

He hadn’t understood most of the words that Allura and Coran had said to them. He understood what mattered though.

Some sort of blood virus.

The Galra scientists had been experimenting with it and likely gave it to Keith.

No known cure.

It would change him.

And then it would kill him.

Lance thinks it is a bad joke for most of the time they are discussing it. He actually laughs at one point during their meeting. The description makes it sound like some space version of being a zombie. It is so ridiculous. So ridiculous to think it even exists and that it would be a death sentence for Keith.

His Keith. His fierce, stubborn, warrior of a boyfriend. The one who can take out a room of Galra by himself without breaking a sweat.

Killed by a space zombie virus.

It’s stupid. It’s ridiculous. It’s ludicrous.

Keith had been so silent during the discussion, allowing Lance to talk and ask questions. He even remains quiet when Lance’s anger grows, when he wants to hit Allura or Coran for playing such a terrible joke and saying such stupid things. He had slipped out quietly, saying he needed a moment, and Lance just keeps screaming and screaming at Allura and Coran, waiting for them to give him the right answer.

The one that says it is just a prank.

The one that says Keith will not die.

It never even occurs to Lance that Keith might die. It is impossible.

He never lets himself believe it, not even for a moment. They just have a new mission now.

They would save Keith. Someone in this universe surely had a cure. The Alteans on board are behind by about 10K years. There is a cure, a solution, and they just need to find the right alien to give it to them.

The universe can wait.

 

**********

 

_Keith kisses him first. It is after a particularly hard battle with Lotor. Lotor escapes and Voltron does as well. A draw. But, there was a moment where it seemed like a loss, where they faced defeat._

_Keith asks if he can speak to Lance alone and then leads him down a dark path through a forest on their current planet that night. There is a lake that is pink and glowing.  It is dark and quiet and pretty._

_The air feels so weird. Lance is quiet, wondering what the boy beside him wanted. He traces Keith’s profile with his eyes, examining his lips, his cheeks, his chin._

_Keith finally speaks._

_“Lance…I just want you to know that no matter what happens tonight I think of you as one of my best friends and I trust you with my life. Ok? That will never change.”_

_“Uh, ok?”_

_Then Keith leans over and kisses him._

_Lance only hesitates for a moment before kissing back._

_All the years they had known each other now. The growing closeness. How they always sat next to each other now. How they spent more and more time together alone. An occasional head on his shoulder. Smiles._

_Lance had tried not to get his hopes up._

_He lets them soar now. All his hopes and dreams. Everything._

_Holding Keith close to him by that lake. Keith’s shaking hand on his cheek._

_All his hopes and dreams._

 

**********

 

It is easy to pretend like nothing is happening at first. Keith seems fine. Maybe a little freaked out, but he feels fine. They laugh. They watch movies. They snuggle. They spar.

It is while watching a movie that Lance notices something on Keith’s lips. He reaches to wipe it off and notices it is blood.

But it is just some blood. Keith and all of them had bled before. Some blood from the mouth never killed anyone.

It is a month after diagnosis that Keith loses himself for the first time.

Lance walks out of their room to see Keith standing in the hallway not moving. Just standing, his back to Lance.

Lance walks over, putting his arm around him and he doesn’t move.

“Hey, Keith, buddy?”

Keith doesn’t look in his direction. His normally intense eyes are cloudy and dull. Lance waves a hand in front of his face and his eyes don’t focus, don’t look. He is gone.

Cold panic grips Lance. He shakes Keith’s shoulders, shakes and shakes and shakes until Keith finally comes back, looking up at Lance, scared.

The time for pretending is over.

 

**********

 

_They go on their first real date after things quiet down while Voltron regroups after the battle with Lotor._

_They go ice skating which neither boy actually knows how to do. Lance even wonders why ice skating exists in space._

_But, it does, and they struggle to make it around the rink, watching 10 legged aliens whip by them with ease._

_It is frustrating at first, but then Lance starts laughing. Keith follows soon after._

_They laugh and laugh and cling to each other while sliding helplessly around the rink. Afterward, they share some sort of space milkshake. They talk and it’s different now. They have talked before as friends, but this is different. Keith’s eyes are soft and vulnerable. Lance can’t stop thinking about their kiss._

_They hold hands as they walk back to the castle._

_Keith kisses him again outside of Lance’s door. He looks so happy and relaxed, more than Lance has ever seen Keith._

_Lance goes inside his room and lays giggling like an idiot in his bed.  He can’t wait to find Allura the next day to gossip with her._

 

**********

 

Space is a big place. It feels even bigger now as they try to chase down any lead on a cure.

Everyone looks tired. There is a dark cloud over the castle that threatens them more than any Galra ever could.

Lance rarely sleeps anymore. He studies. He searches. He goes on solo missions. He tracks down even ghosts of possibilities.

Keith helps at first. He is right there with Lance even as his episodes increase. Even as he bleeds from his mouth more and more. Even when he becomes too weak to spar.

He stops searching around the same time the Red Lion stops letting him in.

Lance doesn’t stop. He pushes and pushes and pushes. He flies, he talks, he fights, he reads. He sees Shiro and Keith sitting next to each other, talking, and walks right by them as he leaves on another mission to talk to an alien that may have a cure.

 

**********

 

“You act like you want to die.”

“Lance, stop.”

“Are you ok just sitting around doing nothing? Just dying?”

“No! Jesus Lance no. I am not ok with that. But I don’t think I have a choice.”

“There is always a choice.”

“Everyone dies. I can’t…I can’t just will myself to not die. It doesn’t work that way.”

“We will find a cure. I am close now.”

“But…”

“But what Keith?”

“I’m dying Lance. I want to spend what time I have left with you. You are gone so much now. Please, Lance. I need you with me.”

Lance hugs his trembling boyfriend. Let’s him cry on his shoulder. Let’s him fall asleep in their bed.

Then gets up and leaves again.

 

**********

 

He finally finds a lead. An actual one.

An old, wrinkly alien alone in a forest in a shack. From what Lance understands, she is the only known being who has ever survived the curse, the virus. She went mad afterward. She doesn’t seem crazy though. Just old and sad. There is a pain in her eyes that makes Lance wince.

She seems kind when Lance speaks to her. She writes something down on a sheet of paper and hands it to him.

Lance translates the sheet of paper with Allura and Coran. They sit and stare at the words.

_The only way to cure your love is love. Only true love can break the curse. It’s the heart, the madness of the heart._

They glance at each other, frustrated.

“He has his true love. It’s me. I am his true love. So why is he still sick?”  

 

**********

 

_They make love for the first time in a weird alien hotel room. It is after a real date where Keith brings him flowers, kisses his cheek, holds his chair out for him._

_The hotel rooms have themes and Keith chose the vaguely ocean themed room for them. Some of the creatures aren’t earth creatures, but Lance loves it nevertheless. It is like being in an aquarium, creatures floating by quietly with beautiful coral and underwater flowers swaying with the gentle rocking of the water._

_Lance has no idea how the alien hotel did it as he assumes there isn’t really an aquarium around them, but it is perfect._

_Keith makes love to him in a way that feels completely unlike him. Lance would have assumed he would be a little awkward, rough, forceful._

_He isn’t though. He is tender and loving. He takes it slow, kissing every part of Lance’s body. And he is gentle, so, so gentle. He makes sure Lance is comfortable every step of the way, makes sure nothing hurts as he carefully penetrates both Lance’s body and soul._

_Afterward, they cuddle and Lance chews on his bottom lip, face turned away so Keith can’t see._

_Oh my god, Lance thinks._

_I don’t just love him. I’m in love with him. I’m in love with this asshole._

 

**********

 

It is not long after getting the bullshit cure from the old alien in the shack that Lance does what he promises he never would.

He gives up.

Keith is fading day by day, in bits and pieces.

He is slipping away and there is nothing Lance can do. He gets thinner and thinner. He stops eating. His episodes increase in frequency.

There are less moments in the day that Keith is Keith.

Lance doesn’t leave anymore. He stays by Keith’s side. He holds his hand. He cuddles him. They talk softly about the life they had shared together.

It starts to feel real. It starts to feel final.

Keith requests time alone with everyone. Allura. Coran. Pidge. Hunk.

Shiro.

Lance knows that he is saying goodbye to them.

He understands now. He understands that he isn’t Keith’s true love. That maybe Keith’s true love exists in a future that Keith will never get to live now. That Lance can’t heal Keith.

There is nothing Lance can do but be the best boyfriend possible until the end. He lavishes Keith with attention, quiet help, nurturing touches.  

He loves him until it hurts. Until it makes Lance want to vomit.  

 

**********

 

Keith spends all of his time with Lance or Shiro now.

Lance gives Keith time with Shiro since he knows they are basically like brothers. It is early one morning when he hears Shiro cry out from his room.

Lance runs, panicking, and sees Shiro standing up in the middle of his room, holding Keith at arm’s length. There is a bite mark on his arm, torn flesh, blood dripping downward.  

Keith’s eyes are cloudy and not his own. He is there but not there.

Later, when he finds out what he did, he cries and cries and cries.

Thankfully, unlike movies, the curse isn’t transferred by bite. It doesn’t make Keith feel better though.

 

**********

 

The next day, Lance walks into their shared room to notice Keith is in the bathroom with the door locked. They never lock the doors like that. 

“Keith, sweetie?”

He knocks on the door.  
There is silence.

He knows, immediately, that something is wrong. He forces the door open by shooting the lock, and runs into the room.

Keith is trembling in the bath tub, covered in blood. Lance sees his dagger laying on the edge of the tub and the blood gushing out of Keith’s wrists.

“Lance, stay away, I am dangerous.”

Lance doesn’t care. He marches over, easily picking Keith up since Keith had lost so much weight.

“Put me down. It is better this way!”  

Lance doesn’t respond.

He holds his boyfriend’s frail body to his chest and marches him to the healing pod.  

Keith tries to fight him, but he is weak. So weak.

 

**********

 

After this incident, Keith begins insisting on cuffing himself most of the day. He can no longer control when or how long the episodes last or his own actions during them. He cuffs himself when Lance will not.

It makes Lance furious. It is Keith. Their Keith. His Keith. He didn’t deserve to be tied up like an animal. Not now, not when the end is growing near.

And Lance knows the end is coming closer, terribly closer with every passing hour. Keith’s lucid moments are rare now. He doesn’t eat at all. Allura and Coran are talking about making him comfortable.  

His episodes grow more violent. Lance is silently relieved for the cuffs during them. Keith lunges at him, snapping his teeth. His beautiful, intense eyes cloudy and unfocused. Lance cries and begs him to come back, to stop.

Lance still stays by his side though. Even if he isn’t Keith’s true love, Keith is his. He will never want anyone else.

 

**********

 

If they were on Earth, the middle of May would be the last time Keith is Keith.

Lance is still by his side. He always is now. He doesn’t care about the universe or Earth or the Galra. All that matters lay wasting away on the bed they shared happily not even a year ago.  

Keith nuzzles him and smiles. Lance grips his hand, perking up immediately when he sees Keith is there.

“Can I do anything, get you anything?”

“Just listen.”

Lance nods.

“You are wonderful. If I could I would stay by your side forever.”

“Keith…” Lance’s voice sounds broken even to his own ears.

“I love you. Don’t be scared. Keep the others in line for me, even Shiro. Lance, don’t be scared.”

Keith squeezes his hand and then his eyes lose focus again, becoming that terrible milky color.

Lance bawls.

He rips the handcuffs off his boyfriend’s hands and throws himself down on his body, clutching Keith to his chest.

“I love you, I love you” he repeats over and over again, cradling Keith like a child. The pain begins to sting and spread. There is nothing else Lance can do.

 

**********

 

_“Do you think there is an afterlife?”_

_“I’m Catholic so yes.” Lance smiles at his boyfriend._

_“Do you think I will go there?”_

_“Of course. I will be waiting for you when you do, mullet.”_

_“Who says you will die first?”_

_“Me, because I wouldn’t want to live without you.”_

_Keith rolls his eyes, throwing a pillow at Lance._

 

**********

 

When Keith opens his eyes, he is confused.

He always expected the afterlife to be bright and happy. He always expected music or gates or something.

The afterlife looks a lot like his room in the castle though. A dim room. And he is sticky.

It slowly dawns on him that he may not actually be dead.

He sits up and realizes that he feels better than he has in months. His head is clear. The weird, foreign sensation pulsing in his blood is gone. He feels stronger and hungry for actual food.

He tries not to get his hopes up, but he feels so amazing that he cannot help but call for Lance, who is probably taking a bath or grabbing a bite to eat.

Keith swings his legs over the bed, confused when something weighs him down. He looks down and jerks with the realization that Lance is in his lap.

Except it is wrong. There is a darkness spread across Lance’s body and Keith’s own body. A gross darkness. Keith touches it and realizes that he feels sticky because of blood.

There is blood. So much blood. An impossible amount of blood.

He pulls Lance up, a desperate feeling of panic hitting him. Lance’s face is fine, just as angelic as ever, eyes closed. He looks peaceful.

It is further down that is the issue.

His entire chest is ripped open. Keith helplessly tries to place his hands over the wound, to stop it, to make Lance stop being so limp.

His hands go through Lance’s chest where there is no longer a heart.

Keith doesn’t stop screaming, even when the others show up, even when Shiro pulls him away from Lance, even when he feels a prick in his arm and the world goes dark.  

**Author's Note:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsaZOc8y-FM
> 
> Song reference


End file.
